


The Pros and Cons of Breathing

by ohmydearlord



Series: Mutually Assured Destruction [4]
Category: Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 5
Genre: Angst, Bad Decisions, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2021-01-21 01:26:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21291347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmydearlord/pseuds/ohmydearlord
Summary: Eli is dead. Melody might as well be.Time for some angst.
Relationships: Female Deputy | Judge/John Seed
Series: Mutually Assured Destruction [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1530242
Kudos: 26





	1. Something's Gotta Give

**Author's Note:**

> Who the fuck knows what this is. I've had a hard week so I'm torturing my girl I guess.  
This will be two parts. I haven't done two parts before! Also, eventually I'll put these in some sort of an order...

It’s 2:38am on Thursday and Eli Palmer is dead. His lifeless body bleeding on the floor. 

_Time to analyse. Catch the murderer. It’s not time to think about how you knew this man. Shot point blank in the head from close range. Shotgun? No... Large calibre rifle most likely._

_Wheaty is furious, poor boy. Eli was like a father to him. It makes sense he’d direct his anger toward law enforcement at the crime scene. People don’t react rationally when they’re grieving. Tammy is pulling him away, god, she must be devastated. Eli was her whole family..._

A hard poke to her chest brings Melody’s mind out of her fog. The crime scene she’s looking at comes into focus in a way that’s too sharp, too clear. 

_Oh fuck, this is my crime scene. MY murder. Focus. What is Tammy saying?_

“...that motherfucker. You find Jacob and you kill him. Or next time I see you, so help me God. I’ll kill you myself.”

_Can’t kill Jacob. That would kill John. Fuck. Time to go. Make a vow to make this right and get the fuck out of here._

Melody disappears into the pitch dark woods. 

\------------------------------

It's 11:02am on Sunday, no-one has seen the Junior Deputy in 11 days. Rumors abound that she's dead. Killed in an attempt to take revenge on Jacob Seed for forcing her to be his weapon in the cults war against the Whitetails. Jacob wasn't dead so it must have been her that lost.

On this Sunday Pastor Jerome gives a sermon on Luke 9. _"If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross , and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it."_

It's broadcast across Falls End. It's meant to be encouraging. It's meant to make people feel better about the death of a woman no-one had really bothered to know. A death most felt they had some hand in. 

No-one listening was aware that also in earshot was the very woman whose life they had ruined.

Holed up in a hunting blind, listening to Jerome preach on her virtues and sacrifice Melody had more than enough time to think on her miserable existence. It hadn't been entirely the fault of the resistance. If Cameron Fucking Burke hadn't ordered her to arrest Joseph Seed this war never would have started.

To be fair, if the Project at Eden's Gate hadn't kidnapped, drugged and forcibly converted townspeople who just wanted to be left alone absolutely none of this would have happened. But it had. 

She thought about leaving. Everyone thought she was dead. She could leave Hope County. Leave Montana entirely. She had cash and supplies stashed in safe houses all over the county. It would be the smart option.

_"Sometimes the best thing to do is walk away."_

But she wouldn't leave, couldn't.. Because somehow she'd grown to believe that maybe the collapse really was coming. That Joseph Seed was right.  
She'd heard the pre-recorded sermons blasting out from the Projects strongholds so many times she knew them by heart.

_"Something is coming. You can feel it can't you?"_

It was true. The world was in chaos. Every day felt like a step closer to the end of the world.

But at the heart of her growing belief in the Fathers message was John.

He so fervently believed everything Joseph preached and she couldn't help but think that if the smartest man she had ever met believed then there must be truth to it. He probably didn't love her, not like she loved him, but he did care about her. She felt it in the way he'd held her hand and half-begged her listen and seen it in the way he'd smiled when she'd agreed to meet with Joseph "just once".

But that had never happened. She'd asked for one more week, one more week before he told his family about their relationship, just one more week of secrecy. Eli had needed her and so she had left.

She'd been setting explosives on a wolf beacon high up in the mountains when Jacobs chosen found her. She woke up in a cage for the third time with Jacob looking down on her, telling her all about her 'purpose' and then he opened that fucking music box and the next thing she knew she was looking down at Eli's body.

They hadn't been friends but he'd been fighting for what he thought was right and Melody had killed him. Shot him in the head and then ran away.  
Melody had run and kept running. She made her way down from the mountains. Slowly, cautiously, sneaking through the shadows. There was still blood on her clothes, there hadn't been time to find new ones. She'd barely slept, barely eaten.

Listening to the Pastor preach was making her go mad. She climbed down the ladder and started making her way south. Moving during the day was risky but hearing how dedicated they thought she had been while she'd been in bed with their enemy for months was too much.

The sun was setting as Melody approached Seed ranch and she fought back the almost overwhelming feeling she should stay dead. She climbed the familiar wrought iron screens up to the second floor and peeked inside. The bedroom was empty which made sense. The entire family were probably at their usual shared Sunday dinner. Melodys stomach growled so loud at the thought of dinner that she wouldn't been surprised if it had alerted the guards.

She broke the window lock and slipped inside. This was a mistake. Melody kicks off her boots, drags the comforter in the walk-in closet and shuts the door. Her sleep deprived mind says at least in the closet she won't be spotted immediately and it's need to rest drowns out the voices droning on about what a mistake this is. 


	2. Twin Skeletons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part two motherfuckers! John's perspective because my girl is mostly catatonic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look! I _can_ do soft! It's not all sarcasm and causing problems for fun.

It's almost midnight when John arrives home. The guard left in charge informs him nothing unusual has happened, all clear.

When he reaches his bedroom it's immediately obvious that this isn't the case. His window is cracked open, parts of the lock are on the floor beneath it. There are boots discarded on the carpet. His bed has been stripped of it's quilt, a corner of fabric stuck in the closet door.

John’s heart skips a beat. He’s been in similar situations before, the Deputy had made a habit of availing herself to his house although he’d never found her in his closet at least this means she isn't dead. 

"Melody?" 

He knocks on the door and on hearing a small groan of an answer pushes it open. In the corner wrapped in his quilt is his deputy. She looks like shit. She smells awful. There are flakes of mud in her hair, dried blood, more mud and god knows what else on her shirt. 

But she isn't dead.

And she's back.

"Melody? Sweetheart? Wake up."

Her eyes flutter open and she smiles the weakest smile he's seen.

"Heyyyyyyyy."

"Okay, honey. I need to you tell me what day it is." His voice is cajoling, "Where have you been?"

"It's Sunday. I've been," she waves a hand, "dead."

"That's, uh, good. We're going to get you out of this mess and _clean._ Can you walk?" 

Melody snorts a little at the emphasis on clean. 

"Of course I can walk. I climbed your house. I can walk. Of course I can walk."

She stumbles and is caught in John's waiting arms. Despite her protests that she's _“absolutely fucking fine”_, he keeps an arm around her waist as he walks her to the bathroom and sits her gently down on the tiles. He fills the bathtub and helps her out of her clothes and into the tub.

They've been here before under much different circumstances. Much more pleasant circumstances when the woman he was with had life in her eyes. This was obviously not the time for an interrogation but the question still remained, where had she been? 

This was all too intimate for them he thinks as he washes her hair, working out knots and dirt. Melody had always claimed this wasn’t a thing. A _thing._ Everything is some sort of a thing. But if she claimed she had no feelings for him he wasn’t going to push.

It was as lie. John could see how she felt, plain as day. Melody was a great liar, one of the best he’d encountered in recent years but John could spot a lie from 10 miles, through tall grass, on a night with no moon. She cared. She wasn’t coming back for sex or showers or omelettes. Not anymore. 

She loved him. 

He’d noticed the change when she’d realised her feelings immediately, and instead of stepping back, John had reciprocated. He’d told himself it was an act to draw her closer, save her from the collapse and herself. Did it matter if it was fake if it saved her soul? He never lied. Only encouraged her along the path to salvation with gentle touches and sweet words. She’d agreed to meet with Joseph. It had been working. 

And then she was gone and it had taken Melody’s sudden absence from his life to make him realise it wasn’t an act. His treacherous heart echoed hers. John Seed had fallen in love. Like a fucking idiot. 

When she’d been gone a week with not a single sighting in days he’d confessed to his brothers and pled with Jacob to tell him where she was. Jacob swore he didn’t know. He was telling the truth and it was a cold comfort. His lover may not have been killed by his brother but that didn’t mean she wasn’t dead in a hole somewhere in the mountains.

Joseph hadn’t reacted anything like he had expected. He said he knew, that the Voice had told she would be part of their family and there was nothing to worry about. _“Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”_

John hadn’t truly believed him but now here she was. Her head resting against his knee, breathing quietly, soaking his jeans with her damp hair.

“Come on,” shaking her shoulders gently to rouse her, “let’s get you to bed.”

The deputy allows herself to be pulled to her feet and wrapped in a towel but insists on taking herself to bed. She shuffles out of the bathroom and crawls onto bed. Forever stubborn she insists she doesn’t need a blanket.

Despite this he fetches another from a guest bedroom and drapes it over her. Already half asleep she catches his sleeve as he moves away and looks up with hooded eyes.

“Don’t leave me.”

John lays down beside her and smooths damp hair back from her face, “never.”

She pushes her face into his chest and inhales deeply.

“I love you.” It’s a mumble, barely even audible through her yawn.

He presses a kiss to her head and replies, just as softly, “I love you too.”

They’ll deal with the consequences tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If I'd continued with naming with what I was listening to at posting this would be called "It's Not a Side Effect of the Cocaine, I am Thinking it Must be Love" which almost works. 😂
> 
> This one is perfect though. Might as well be their theme song.
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/track/2WWP0IPX9xFjAMraNHX390?si=cbObxZQkRSG8kviUuMdOwA
> 
> Have a musical education?


End file.
